


hold me closer (it's not over)

by amaura



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas Fluff, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Getting Back Together, M/M, Post-Break Up, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-09-26 20:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17148446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaura/pseuds/amaura
Summary: “I didn’t tell my parents that we broke up and they’re still expecting you for Christmas,” Luc says, running a hand through his hair. “And, like, I didn’t say you would be there, but I didn’t say you wouldn’t be there, either. They were so happy talking about how last year we did Christmas at your parents’ and how it was their turn this year to welcome you into the family and I just—”Tito’s pretty sure Luc keeps talking but he tunes him out. There’s a lot to process in that first part alone and Tito is way too sober for this. His head is spinning and he’s trying to find a way out of this, but he can’t. He wants Luc to deal with this situation on his own; he wants Luc to grow up and tell his parents that they broke up but — Tito realizes he hasn’t even told his own parents about the break up either.





	hold me closer (it's not over)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [failurebydesign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/failurebydesign/gifts).



> This was a lot of fun to write. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thanks to my small village that's always willing to look things over for me, you know who you are!

There’s already a knot in Tito’s stomach when he hears the knocks on his door, for a variety of reasons.

There’s the obvious reason that it’s late at night, the less obvious reason that none of his friends actually have any common decency or even know of this thing called _knocking_ , and then there’s the one that probably should’ve popped into his mind first—the sinking feeling that something bad is about to happen.

He’s hesitating whether he should get up and answer or ignore the knocking until it stops when the person knocks again. Tito sighs, turning off the TV before he makes his way to the door.

The closer he gets to the door, the faster he can hear and feel his heart beating faster. He’s not nervous or anything, because whoever is standing behind that door knows who he is and knows where he lives, so it could be anyone on the team. He’s just confused.

He doesn’t look through the peephole before opening the door and thinks, belatedly, that maybe he should’ve when he realizes who’s standing in front of him.

Tito’s instincts are rarely wrong, and he should’ve trusted his gut and stayed on the couch. Instead, he’s standing still in his doorway, staring into the eyes of the guy who broke his heart just a few months ago.

It’s like he’s frozen into place—like he can’t move at all. Tito’s been trying to move on for months now and right now, in this very moment, he feels vulnerable, broken, just like he did that first day after Luc left.

Tito blinks—once, twice—telling himself that maybe his mind is playing tricks on him, because there’s no reason for Luc to be here, not in the middle of the season. He’d gotten used to following the Blue Jackets’ schedule to a T last year and it’s as they say, ‘old habits die hard’ and that habit hasn’t died just yet.

“You—why are you here?” Tito hears himself asking.

It’s a valid question that deserves an honest answer. He’s not expecting much, not after Luc left him without much of an explanation back in September, but it’s worth asking anyway.

Luc rolls on the ball of his feet. He seems nervous—like he hadn’t planned this ahead, just decided to show up on Tito’s doorstep unannounced, thinking it would end well for him. Tito hopes Luc knows he was wrong.

“Can we talk inside? I’ll explain, just—please let me in,” Luc says, and Tito hates how quickly he agrees. He steps aside, letting Luc in and reluctantly closing the door. Saying no to Luc has always been hard, even before they were together, so it’s no surprise that Tito still can’t say no to him now.

Tito starts walking towards the couch and Luc follows him closely, like he’s afraid Tito’s going to change his mind and kick him out. It’s possible and Tito wants to, really, but there’s a part of him that actually wants to know what Luc wants; wants to know what was worth making the 2-hour flight to New York for.

“So,” Luc says, “I need a favour.”

Tito wants to laugh. “You came all this way because of a favour? You could’ve just texted me.”

“You would’ve answered? Look, I know that we’re not together anymore, but we were friends before we started dating so I’m still hoping you can do this for me,” Luc says.

Tito’s quiet, because he doesn’t even know what to say.

“I didn’t tell my parents that we broke up and they’re still expecting you for Christmas,” Luc says, running a hand through his hair. “And, like, I didn’t say you would be there, but I didn’t say you _wouldn’t_ be there, either. They were so happy talking about how last year we did Christmas at your parents’ and how it was their turn this year to welcome you into the family and I just—”

Tito’s pretty sure Luc keeps talking but he tunes him out. There’s a lot to process in that first part alone and Tito is _way_ too sober for this. His head is spinning and he’s trying to find a way out of this, and he can’t. He wants Luc to deal with this situation on his own; he wants Luc to grow up and tell his parents that they broke up but—Tito realizes he hasn’t even told his own parents about the break up either.

He looks up at Luc, trying his best to find an excuse not to go. He doesn’t have an excuse because the plan always was to go to Luc’s for Christmas this year and Tito hasn’t felt like making other plans because making other plans meant that he was over Luc and he’s—not.

“Maybe I have plans,” Tito says, and he doesn’t sound very convincing, but he hopes Luc buys it.

“Do you?”

“I guess you wouldn’t know, would you?” Tito says, and he wants to get off the couch, but he can feel Luc’s eyes on him, grounding him and he can’t move. “You’re the one who left.”

“Will you at least consider it?” Luc asks. He looks tired from the flight over and Tito almost feels for him except he can’t, because Luc broke his heart and Tito’s clearly not over that at all, but Luc looks unaffected.

When he realizes that Tito isn’t gonna answer, Luc says, “At least think about it, Tito, please.”

And the thing is, Tito should say no. He should stand up for himself and say that Luc broke his heart once and that he definitely doesn’t want a do-over. Luc is desperate because he put himself in this situation and wants Tito’s help getting out of it and it would be so easy for Tito to just let him deal with this on his own. Tito knows the implications that come with agreeing to this, but he also knows that maybe this could be good for him. If Mat were here, he’d tell Tito that this is the best way for him to get closure, which totally makes this a terrible idea but now that he thinks about it, pretending to date Luc for a few days can’t be that hard when Luc pretended to be in love with him for a whole year.

Luc is almost out the door, with his hand on the door handle, when Tito says, “Fine, I’ll do it.”

“Seriously? I didn’t think you’d even consider it,” Luc says, but he sounds relieved. Tito is as surprised as he is.

“And yet you came all this way,” Tito says, sarcastically. “You should go, before I change my mind.”

Luc is smiling and somehow, Tito can’t help but smile back at him. It’s temporary, until Luc is out of his apartment and as soon as he closes the door, Tito lets his head thunk against it. He’s definitely not smiling anymore. Instead, he’s asking himself why on earth he would agree to something like this when he clearly still has feelings for Luc. Tito can’t do this again—have Luc for three days only to be heartbroken again. He wants to be with Luc and craves those little moments of intimacy they got to share over the past year, but he doesn’t know if it’s worth to have that for a few days only to have it taken from him again.

Tito’s tired and even though this has to be the worst decision he’s made in a while, he can’t back out now. It’s too late.

 

It gets harder not to think about Luc after that.

To tell the truth, Luc is all Tito can think about the next day. Practice in the morning is a great distraction—he lets himself forget about everything and just focuses on playing his best hockey. It must show because Anders pats his back after practice, telling him he looked good out there. Tito goes home after practice and bails on his lunch plans with Mat because he doesn’t want to sit through an hour of lunch where he pretends like there’s not a huge lump in his chest. He doesn’t want to have to tell Mat about his problems and he doesn’t want Mat going after Luc at the next game, either.

So, he goes home and the first thing he does is sit on the couch and take a deep breath. He knows he needs to when he feels his heart pounding hard in his chest. He knows that’s not from practice because as much as his teammates like to tease him about it, all the cardio he does in the gym pays off.

The first thing that crosses his mind when he looks around his apartment is Luc. The fact that he was there last night is still bewildering and Tito is still trying to make sense of everything. The fact that he decided to fly to New York in the middle of his day off to ask Tito a favour, even though he didn’t know for sure that Tito would agree.

And that’s the thing that bothers him the most—the fact that if he had said no, Luc would’ve been here for nothing and Tito would’ve spent the next days thinking about it. A little bit like he is right now.

It hits him only later in the afternoon that he just agreed to spend three days with his ex-boyfriend and his family, pretending to be madly in love with the guy who broke his heart just a few months back. It doesn’t make sense—how fast and easily Tito said yes. Sure, he spent a few minutes thinking about it, weighing the pros and cons in the heat of the moment, but in the end, he still agreed without thinking of the repercussions. Without thinking about how the fallout is going to hurt just as much—if not more—than his initial break up with Luc did.

He panics a little—pacing around his apartment like that’s going to help anything—and then he calls Chabby because that’s the next best option.

It doesn’t take too long before Chabby picks up.

“Hey,” he says, and Tito can hear the smile in his voice. “Did you get yourself in trouble again?”

“You sound like my mom,” Tito says.

“Maybe she’s the one you should be calling. That’s what moms are for.”  

Tito laughs. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say,” he says.

Chabby’s quiet on the other end of the line, so Tito knows he’s just going to have to come out and say it before he hangs up on him.

“So, I think I did something stupid,” is what Tito ends up starting with. In retrospect, he could’ve worded it differently, when he thinks about it.

There’s laughter on the other end and Tito can’t help but laugh too, except it’s more a laugh of shame on his part than anything else. “How stupid are we talking? Like, give me a number on a scale of 1 to 10 and I’ll decide whether I can help you or not. I have a life too, you know.”

“Pretty fucking stupid,” Tito says, rubbing the back of his head. He needs to stop pacing in his house, so he sits on his couch and just—deflates. “Like, probably a 9? Maybe 9.5”

“Okay, let’s hear it.”

The funny thing is, Chabby doesn’t even sound surprised. He probably isn’t because if his memory serves right, Tito remembers that most of the things Chabby has to deal with start with one of his friends telling him they did something stupid. Tito hates to admit that he likes to get himself stuck in situations that he usually has trouble getting out of and he can’t remember a situation he managed to get out of by himself, without Chabby’s help.

So, Tito tells him everything. What helps is that Chabby already knows about the break up and about what happened—Tito’s pretty sure he has both sides of the story, because he was Luc’s friend first—but he’s been good with everything, even after the break up.

“This is a lot,” he says, when Tito’s done talking.

“I told you it was stupid,” Tito says, because in his defence, he did warn him beforehand.

Chabby laughs. “This isn’t the worst thing you’ve done before. Or the worst thing Luc’s done before.”

“True.”

“Though, I’m surprised that he actually talked to you about this in person. That’s almost mature of him,” Chabby says.

Tito’s surprised Luc actually talked to him in person about this, too. He expected a text or even a phone call, if this needed to be heard and not written, but like—this is on a whole other level. Luc has never been keen on big gestures. Tito knew that way before they got together, and this is kind of a big one.

“I still think this is a bad idea,” Tito says, because really, what the fuck did he just get himself into?

It’s a little late to be thinking about that, because he knows he can’t back out now. He already said yes, and he doesn’t want Luc to think that he can’t do this, because if anyone can do it, it’s definitely him. Tito realizes a little too late that he _needs_ to go through with this. Not because of everything he already knows, but also because as much as he hates Luc for breaking his heart and for ending the most promising relationship he’s had in years, he still loves him and knows that if the situations were reversed, he’d want Luc to do the same for him.

“It’s not the best idea, no,” Chabby says, “but it’s not the worst either. You don’t know how this is going to end and maybe it’s going to bring you guys closer. Give you closure, or something.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Tito says, though he’s only barely agreeing with him. “How do you always manage to make sense of all the stupid shit I get myself into?”

“I don’t know,” Chabby says, honest. “I think having someone else’s opinion on things helps.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Tito says, with a sigh. “I’ll let you go back to whatever you were doing, man.”

Chabby hangs up shortly after saying goodbye and Tito’s in a clearer state of mind than he was before the call. He’s still thinking about Luc, but for different reasons. He’s thinking ahead, this time. Thinking about what’s going to happen and how things are going to go. He’s not as hopeful as Chabby is that this is going to give him closure, but he’s thinking that it can’t be _that_ bad.

He’s got to try to find out.

 

The next few weeks are a blur. They win more than they lose and the team is doing well, which is more than Tito can say about himself. He’s playing better, sure, but when he gets home or goes back to the hotel after a road game, all he can think about is Luc and that thing Luc got him into.

November ends in the blink of an eye, and before Tito realizes it, it’s December. The entire team had circled December 1st in their calendars because it’s the first game they’d be playing at Nassau Coliseum since 2015. And that alone would be fine; Tito has been looking forward to this game too, but not for the same reason. This is the first time they play against the Blue Jackets this season, and before everything happened, Tito had been looking forward to it, but now he’s not sure.

The game itself goes better than Tito could’ve expected. He even gets a goal out of it, which is a win in his books. He doesn’t say anything about how Mat and the rest of the team seem to enjoy pushing Luc against the boards. In the end, they win the game and that’s all that matters.

Things are fine, and that should’ve been Tito’s first clue that things were about to get a lot less fine.

There’s a knock on the door, and if Tito knew any better, he wouldn’t get up to answer. This time around, he’s got a pretty good idea of who’s standing on the other side of that door, so he gets up but he takes his time. There’s no hurry, not really, and when he goes to open the door, he’s not surprised to see Luc standing on the other side.

Except –

Tito’s been looking for his yellow hoodie for months and he thought he left it at his parents’ place in Montreal, but it turns out Luc had it all this time. He’s wearing it now, and Tito’s eyes are focused on how tight it looks on him around the shoulders. Seeing Luc in his clothes is bringing back memories and Tito’s trying to stop his brain from remembering but he can’t. He can’t because Luc is standing in his apartment wearing _his_ clothes and Tito can barely focus. Luc seems to realize that Tito’s looking at his hoodie, because he looks down and smiles.

“That’s my hoodie,” Tito says, almost matter-of-fact. “I’ve been looking for that for months.”

“You gave it to me back in August and I forgot to give it back,” Luc says, simply. “Can you let me in or are we really going to have this conversation in a hallway?”

Tito reluctantly pushes the door open and lets Luc close the door behind him.

“Why are you here?” Tito asks, and he feels like he’s back at his apartment that first night when Luc got him roped into this.

“I thought it would be good for us to see each other before the Christmas,” Luc says. “Because I don’t think my parents are gonna believe we’re still together if you act like this in front of them.”

Tito laughs. “This is different. You showed up at my apartment unannounced, for the second time in less than two weeks and what, I’m supposed to be okay with it and not ask why you decided to come over?”

“You have a point, I’m just saying—”

“I won’t embarrass you in front of your parents, if that’s what you want to hear,” Tito says, rolling his eyes. He moves from the couch and walks to the kitchen to grab a water bottle from the fridge.

“Yeah,” Luc says, but it doesn’t sound very convincing. “I just want to know if there are, like, boundaries I need to know about before we do this.”

There aren’t, not really. Tito isn’t opposed to kissing Luc if they need to, and he knows that Luc is a bit more private when it comes to public displays of affection, so.

Tito wants to say something like _for someone who pretended to be in love with me for a whole year you sure suck at pretending_ , but he doesn’t say anything. He’s the one mad at Luc; he doesn’t want Luc to be mad at him too, on top of that.

“Like I said, I won’t embarrass you in front of your parents.”

This time, Luc leaves without Tito telling him to leave. Maybe it’s for the best.

 

The rest of December flies by and before he knows it, Tito’s on a plane to Montreal with Luc sitting next to him.

The flight there is uneventful—Tito spends most of it thinking too hard. He knows he shouldn’t get cold feet now, because if it was too late to back out before, it’s definitely too late to back out now. Luc is fidgety next to him, and every time he moves, his shoulder brushes against Tito’s and Tito tries not to let it distract him too much, but it does. Being close to Luc again shouldn’t be this hard, but it is.

They don’t really talk when they get off the plane, just mild conversation until they find a Uber to get to Luc’s childhood home. It’s too awkward and it feels strange, because there’s never been this much awkwardness between the two of them—even when they were friends in the beginning. Being with Luc has always been an easy thing; Tito never thought he had to force anything for things to feel good and real between them, but now is different.

They’re trying to fool Luc’s parents and some of his extended family into thinking that they never broke up and are still the happy couple they always were, but they can’t even look each other in the eye. These past few months without Luc have been awful for Tito and he doesn’t think he can just pretend they never happened, just to please Luc’s family. In a way, he’s glad he doesn’t have to do this with his family, too, because he doesn’t think he could pull of lying about this to them.

“We’re gonna have to talk at some point, y’know?” Tito says after a while.

They’re sitting in the Uber and the driver seems to be too focused on the road and on the songs playing on the radio to even focus on their conversation. Tito doesn’t speak too loudly, but he makes sure that it’s loud enough for Luc to hear.

“I know,” Luc says. “Just—this is crazy.”

Tito laughs. “Yeah,” he says, breathily. “I’m sure we can pull it off, though.”

The song on the radio changes and Tito wishes he couldn’t hear it. He’s sure Luc noticed too, because he’s looking at him. Tito can feel his eyes on him, and he doesn’t want to talk about this – doesn’t want to talk about how all the love songs that play on the radio remind him of Luc. If that was true when they were dating, it’s even more true now that they’ve broken up.

He looks out of the window.

“Do you remember last year, with my family?” Tito says, breaking the silence himself to make sure that if they were going to talk about something, it wasn’t the large amount of love songs playing on the radio these days. “We had fun and we were just us. This doesn’t have to be any different. We don’t have to pretend to be something we’re not—we just have to be who we were when we were together, and things are going to be fine.”

“I remember,” Luc says. “I know I said I didn’t expect you to agree to this, but I’m really glad you did.”

Luc smiles and Tito can’t help but smile, too. It’s hard not to smile around Luc, and as much as he tries not to be happy around him anymore, it’s proven harder than he thought. Tito hasn’t dated many guys for a lot of different reasons but dating Luc was one of the easiest decisions he’s made. Luc is someone people don’t hesitate to surround themselves with, because his energy and his smile pull you in. The fact that he looks the way he does—well-built and relatively in shape—doesn’t hurt either.

Luc is Tito’s dream guy for those reasons and many more, but there was no way he was gonna say not to having a chance to be with him again, even if it was just for show.

“I’m glad I did, too,” Tito says, and he means it.

“Truce?”

Tito smiles. “Yeah, okay, truce,” he says easily, because as hard as it is to admit, this isn’t going to go well unless they’re on good terms. Temporarily, at least.

The drive to Luc’s house is shorter than Tito had thought. The car slows down next to a house with a lot of Christmas decorations—there are garlands and lights and there’s even a lit-up tree on the front lawn. There isn’t much snow, because of all the rain they had in the past few days, but there’s a thin layer of snow on the ground that makes this even more festive.

There’s a welcome party at the door, waiting for them when they get out of the Uber. Tito looks over to Luc and he thinks that’s the first genuine smile he’s seen on Luc in a while. He smiles, too, grabbing his carry-on from the trunk. The first person Luc runs to is his sister, who hugs him before he’s even dropped his bags.

“Hey, Daph,” Luc says. He hugs her tight and Tito stands behind them awkwardly.

Luc’s mom is still standing in the doorway and she’s smiling at Tito. She looks so happy to see him that he’s a little taken aback. Tito supposes that’s how Luc felt when he saw his Mom last Christmas. They don’t spend too much time in the doorway, instead closing the door and stepping inside where it’s warm. It’s not particularly cold outside, but Tito only brought a light coat because he didn’t think the weather would drop too far below zero but it’s a little colder now that the sun is gone.

“Welcome,” Luc’s mom says. “We’re so glad you two could be here for Christmas this year.”

Tito smiles. “Thanks for having me!”

It’s too easy to get used to being in each other’s space again. There’s no adjustment period—no awkwardness or anything. Everyone is sitting on the couch before they move to the kitchen for dinner and Tito’s sitting at the end of the couch with Luc. Luc has an arm wrapped around Tito’s waist and it’s _good_. They’re talking about hockey and the conversation flows without any hitch and if he knew better, Tito would believe that he and Luc are as close as they used to be when they were together. It’s like those two months spent not talking to each other didn’t happen, for a second.

“We saw you got a hat trick, Anthony,” Luc’s dad says, keeping the conversation going. “Pretty impressive, those were three great goals.”

Tito remembers that night too well. He remembers it for the good and for the bad—the bad being Tito sitting in his room waiting for Luc to text him or even call him to congratulate him about the hat trick. It’s stupid, now that he thinks about it, because they were broken up and clearly not on speaking terms, so it would be weird for Luc to talk to him just for that.

Still, Tito would’ve appreciated it.

“Yeah,” Tito says. “That was such a fun night. I’m never going to forget it.”

Luc’s dad turns to Luc. “You called him after, right? I remember you telling him he called you right after your hat trick.”

Luc looks at Tito and then back at his dad. “Yeah, I did. I made sure to call him before he went out with his teammates. I didn’t want him to feel like he had to talk to me about it instead of celebrating, but we definitely talked about it after. I’m proud of him,” he says.

Luc’s dad seems to buy it. Tito wishes it was that easy and that he could eat that up like everyone else, but he can’t. He hates how real it sounds even though it didn’t happen. He wishes that’s how it happened and after he scored that third goal and the hats were thrown on the ice, all he could think about was how he wanted to talk to Luc about it. Luc’s first hat trick was a moment that he got to share with Luc and that he’s going to remember for the rest of his life. He wishes Luc could say the same about his.

Thankfully, they don’t have time to talk about this for too long because they move to the kitchen for dinner. Tito stands up, takes a deep breath and lets Luc put his hand on the small of his back as they make their way to the table. He’s still surprised at how easy it was for Luc to lie to his parents about this, but then he remembers that Luc’s the one that came up with this whole sham to lie to his parents in the first place.

Dinner is really good—they ate and still managed to act like a couple for most of it. Everything felt natural, like the way Luc would make sure Tito had enough of everything, the way he’d hold Tito’s hand under the table when he caught his sister looking. He’s sure that to someone looking at the two of them, they seemed like two guys in love with each other and Tito wishes that was the case—wishes Luc still loved him. Instead, all he sees is how methodically calculated Luc’s every movements are.

Luckily, the subject changes and they focus on Luc’s sister instead, asking her how her classes were during her last semester. Luc asks a few questions himself, and he seems utterly interested in what she’s saying which is good because Tito doesn’t think he can focus much on what’s going on around the table with the way Luc is smiling at his sister.

He always knew they were close, even though he hadn’t really ever met her in person before this summer, but their bond is stronger than Tito could’ve imagined. She’s like the girl-version of Luc—attentive, happy and she has the same energy to her that Luc has.

 

They make it to dessert without being caught and Tito finds himself lucky that they even made it this far. Luc gets up to go to the bathroom before the end of dinner and Tito’s left alone at the table trying to make nice to a family he barely knows. He’s had dinner with them before, but it was during the summer when he and Luc were still very much in love. This is different now, because this isn’t real. This is just for show, and he’s worried it’s gonna show on his face that they’re not serious about this.

Thankfully, he doesn’t really have to deal with Luc’s parents because his mom grabs everyone’s plates and makes sure to clear the table before they eat dessert. Luc’s dad is in the kitchen—probably preparing dessert—which leaves Tito alone with Luc’s sister.

“Hey,” she says, taking Luc’s seat while he’s gone. “So, I didn’t get to do this last year because you guys didn’t spend Christmas here, but even if he’s my big brother, I’ll fight you if you break his heart.”

Tito smiles, though he’s admittedly a bit scared. “Noted,” he says. “My brother told him the same thing last year, so he’s been warned too.”

“You know, I don’t know you very well but I’m willing to fight him if he breaks your heart too. Deal?” she says, and Tito’s not going to cry. He’s not.

And that’s when it hits him. Tito knew that this wasn’t going to go smoothly, because things like this rarely do—not that he’s talking from experience or anything—but this is a bump in the road that he didn’t expect. It’s already hard enough for him to pretend that Luc didn’t break his heart a few months ago, that to have his sister talk about it as a possibility and not like an actual thing that happened is a lot to take in.

“Deal,” Tito says, belatedly.

If he sounds off, she doesn’t seem to notice.

Thankfully, Luc isn’t gone for too long and the minute he comes back, he and his sister start talking about something else and Tito can get lost in his thoughts without looking like he’s not listening to what they’re saying.

The hard part wasn’t having to act like he still had feelings for Luc. That still comes easily to him, no matter how much he wishes it didn’t. His feelings for Luc are still there, just buried under a few months of anger and heartbreak. He knows he has to get over Luc and that this isn’t exactly the best way to do so but being here with Luc is better than anything he’d have ever expected.

Tito spent the last month or so mentally preparing himself for any argument they’d have over stupid things, for anything he would have to do to make sure this goes as planned and the thing is, everything was going so well so far that Tito doesn’t know what to think. On one hand, he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, but on the other hand, he doesn’t mind how well things are going because it’s bringing back memories that he never thought he could have. He’s also mentally prepared himself for the eventual heartbreak when this is all going to be over.  

 

The rest of dinner goes by smoothly, and by the end of it, everyone moves back to the living room to watch a Christmas movie. It doesn’t take long for everyone to agree on Elf, and Luc’s sister takes the lazy boy so that Luc and Tito can have the couch to themselves.

Tito’s head is on Luc’s lap and he can feel Luc’s fingers running through his hair. It’s comfortable, at first, and Tito would even go as far as saying he likes it. He’s getting more and more tired as the night goes on and Luc’s fingers in his hair are relaxing. Tito doesn’t know what this looks like from an onlooker’s point of view, but if he didn’t know any better, he’d think that Luc still has feelings for him, even after breaking up with Tito so heartlessly.

He doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but when he wakes up, he’s still in the living room with his head propped onto Luc’s thighs. There’s a pillow under his head—he assumes Luc put it there when Tito’s head got too heavy after a while—but Luc’s fingers are still tangled in Tito’s hair and it’s probably reaching to think that it actually means something, but Tito’s not a huge believer in coincidences. Luc’s sister is long gone and the TV is shut off, so it must be pretty late.

Tito turns his head to look at Luc and he seems to have dozed off during the movie too. He nudges him, hoping that Luc wakes up easily so he doesn’t have to carry him to the bedroom. That’d be awkward, especially since Tito doesn’t know which room is theirs and wants to avoid walking into a room where he’s clearly not wanted.

“Hey,” he says, loud enough for Luc to hear but not too loud, either. “We should go sleep upstairs. I’m not spending the night on the couch and neither are you.”

Luc moves a little, but he groans. It makes Tito smile, for a second, because he doesn’t want to move from the couch either. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but it was also cozy, which is something he’d missed. He stops smiling the second Luc starts moving and he moves too, standing up and waiting for Luc to show him the direction of the bedroom. Luc’s childhood home isn’t that big, but it’s easy to get lost in a house you’re not really familiar with.

They walk up the stairs and funnily enough, Luc’s room is the first one on the right.

And the thing is, Tito thought he was prepared for everything that was going to happen on this trip, but the one thing he hadn’t thought about was the sleeping arrangements. He made a list on his phone of everything they’d probably end up doing based on what happened last year, but sharing a bed never crossed his mind. Obviously, last year when it was Luc’s turn to meet the family for Christmas, they’d slept together on a pullout couch in the basement. It had been fine, at the time, because they were together and didn’t mind cuddling and sleeping together. This time around, it’s a little different.

Tito stops in the doorway next to Luc and judging by the look on Luc’s face, he didn’t think about how they’d probably end up sleeping together, either.

Tito walks into the room when it looks like Luc isn’t going to move, and he heads for his suitcase. Luc follows him and they don’t talk—this is the first time things are awkward ever since they arrived and Tito isn’t sure if he likes it. He liked it better when he was snuggled on the couch with Luc, when Luc was playing in his hair like they’d done that before and not like it was a one-time thing.

“You can have the bathroom first,” Tito hears from the other side of the room.

Luckily, Luc has his own bathroom so Tito grabs everything he needs and walks to the bathroom. He turns the light on, puts all of his things on the counter and lets his back hit against the door quietly.

Tito closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. They’re not even a day in and he’s rethinking every choice he’s made ever since that night Luc came over to his place. The urge to call or text Chabby to ask him what he should do is weighing on him, but his phone is on the counter under his toiletries bag so it’s too far out of reach for him to do anything. He wants to open the door to the bathroom and ask Luc how he feels about everything—ask him if he felt it too, when the mood changed from easy and comfortable to awkward and painful.

He doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he splashes cold water on his face, brushes his teeth and he’s out of the bathroom in under 10 minutes.

Luc is lying on the bed when Tito walks out of the bathroom. He’s sitting on the right side—the side he always favored back when they were together, and even before that—and Tito slips under the covers next to him for a bit before Luc gets up without saying a word.

Luc eventually comes back to bed and even though this is a queen bed just like the ones they’ve shared many times before, he sleeps as far away from Tito as possible. Tito’s turned on his side and he kind of misses how things were before—how things were when they were on the couch pretending to be madly in love.

And what hurts the most is that he wishes they didn’t have to pretend at all.

 

Tito spends the first part of the night twisting and turning, and he settles on lying on his back for a while, staring at the ceiling. Part of him always knew that getting into bed with Luc—both literally and figuratively—was going to make the feelings he has for Luc resurface. He only did it because he knows how much family means to Luc and he didn’t want to ruin Christmas for them by not showing up. The way Luc’s mom’s face lit up when they were walking up to the front porch was enough for Tito to understand that he made the right decision.

He moves around a little, turning to his side. Luc is sleeping next to him, facing the other way and Tito spends a moment staring at his back.

“Can’t sleep?” Luc mumbles, quietly. He turns around, facing Tito, and it makes Tito smile for a quick second. He doesn’t let it linger too long, but just long enough for Luc to smile back at him.

“No, but it’s fine,” Tito says, “I’ll fall asleep eventually.”  

Luc moves so that he’s lying on his back and he pulls Tito closer and Tito goes easily. He doesn’t question it and he just lets himself have this. His head is on top of Luc’s heart and he can heart how fast Luc’s heart is beating. Sleeping like this feels familiar and it reminds Tito of those warm summer nights spent in Luc’s apartment, with the AC on while they watched Netflix and lost track of time. It reminds Tito of those nights spent in his apartment in Brooklyn, sleeping with Luc’s arm wrapped around him. As angry as he is that Luc decided to walk back into his life after breaking his heart, Tito does enjoy these little moments.

“You used to sleep fine when we slept together, y’know, before,” Luc says.

Tito’s quiet for a moment. “Yeah, well—” he says, and he lets the silence finish the sentence for him. He doesn’t have to add anything like _breaking up does that to people_ for Luc to understand what he’s trying to say.

Luc wraps his arm around Tito and Tito doesn’t even flinch. “This okay?”

“Yeah,” Tito says, easily. “It’s good. Good night.”

“Good night.”

It doesn’t take too long before Tito’s eyelids feel heavy and he falls asleep.

 

Tito wakes up to the smell of pancakes. It’s an unfamiliar scent since he’s so used to either living alone in his apartment all season or living out of suitcases on the road, but it’s familiar enough that it reminds him of home. The bed is empty next to him and it doesn’t take a lot of figuring out to realize that Luc is downstairs in the kitchen, probably making pancakes with his parents. Tito gets up, puts his glasses on and starts making his way downstairs, following the smell of pancakes to the kitchen where he finds Luc and his mom at the kitchen table, eating breakfast.

There’s a lot of food on the table and Tito smiles at Luc’s mom before taking a seat next to Luc.

“Good morning,” he says, to everyone in the room.

There are pancakes on the table with maple syrup and it smells so good that Tito has to refrain from taking everything. He grabs his plate and puts two or three pancakes in it. Luc hands him the maple syrup without him having to ask and he mouths a small ‘thank you’ that he follows with a smile, not only because he can see Luc’s mom watching in the corner of his eye, but because he thought things were starting to get better after the conversation they had in bed last night and he was hoping for things to stay that way.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Luc’s mom says. “Meet us in the living room when you’re done.”

“Sounds good, Mom,” Luc says. Tito smiles at her before she leaves the room.

He takes another bite of his pancake after that, and Luc is scrolling through Instagram on his phone, which makes Tito want to lean over to see what he’s doing. He doesn’t.

“Do you know what your parents have planned for the rest of the day?” Tito asks.

“What, are you bored already?”

“No, I just—”

Luc looks up from his phone with a lopsided smile. “I know I was kidding,” he says. He’s running a hand through his hair before grabbing another strawberry from the basket on the table. “We have presents in the living room after you’re done eating and then I think the rest of the family is coming over and it’s tradition to play a game of street hockey with the kids. After that, Christmas dinner and I think that’s it,” Luc says.

“Sounds fun,” Tito says, getting up to put his plate in the dishwasher.

After breakfast, they move to the living room for presents. Tito’s too busy thinking about how Luc’s hand is resting on the small of his back to remember that he left his present for Luc upstairs, so it’s only when he notices all the presents under the tree that weren’t there last night that he excuses himself to go upstairs to grab it.

He stops in his tracks when he walks into the room, because he takes one look at the unmade bed and memories from last summer and last year pop up in his head. Tito thinks about all the beds he shared with Luc over the years and about how different from all of those times last night was. He remembers one time last summer when they were in Barcelona. They’d booked a room together and even though it was hot in the room and that the AC wasn’t on for most of the night, Tito remembers waking up the next morning with Luc by his side feeling like he had slept for days even though it had only been 8 hours at most.

He remembers all the nights they spent together at Worlds, thinking that everyone had no clue that they ended up sleeping in each other’s rooms.

He also can’t forget all those times in Luc’s apartment when they spent the rest of the summer in Montreal together. He remembers waking up in bed with Luc and even though they had so much planned for the rest of the day, all he wanted to do was stay in bed with Luc and spend the rest of the day there.

Seeing the unmade bed brings back all the good memories that Tito wouldn’t give up for anything in the world. Right now, though, he thinks about how this morning he woke up and Luc wasn’t there and even though they’d slept apart for the past few months, it still felt completely wrong for him to wake up without Luc.

He shakes his head, when he hears laughter downstairs, and heads straight to his suitcase to grab Luc’s gift and gets out of the room as fast as he can.

He comes back downstairs, and everyone is looking at him, almost like they were all waiting for him and Tito doesn’t know how much time he spent upstairs in the doorway but judging by the look on all of their faces, it probably was way longer than Tito realized.

He pushes his glasses up on his nose a little and takes a seat next to Luc.

“Who wants to go first?” Luc’s dad asks.

“I’ll go,” Luc says, and he walks up to the tree and grabs a box that’s almost the size of Tito’s.

It’s wrapped nicely, almost too nicely that Tito doesn’t believe Luc wrapped it himself. It makes him laugh, because he thinks about the present he bought Luc and how he asked the people at the store to wrap it for him because he wanted it to look good instead of having it look like someone who clearly didn’t know what to do tried to wrap a present.

Luc comes back and takes back his seat next to Tito. He hands him the gift and their hands brush together for a second and Tito would ignore it except it made him shiver and the feeling lingers for a moment. Tito doesn’t take his time opening it—he’s never been able to, dating back to when he was a little kid.

He’s surprised to see what’s inside, and not because he doesn’t appreciate it, but because he didn’t think Luc remembered that Tito talked about wanting this for months. It’s a watch—and as much as Tito can afford it with the salaries they make, he never thought he’d actually own one just like this. He sits there in awe and he looks up at Luc and gives him the most genuine smile he can muster.

“I can’t believe you remembered,” Tito says, still smiling.

He’s glad Luc is smiling too. “Of course, I remembered. You talked about this all summer and I wanted to get you this for your birthday, but they didn’t have it at the time.”

“Thank you,” Tito says, and he’s sure he’s blushing. He leans in and gives Luc a hug and Luc hugs him back like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

Tito already had Luc’s present with him when he came to sit down on the couch, so instead of moving on to someone else, Tito grabs the box from where it sits at his feet and puts it on Luc’s lap.

“Open yours now.”

He’s not expecting much of a reaction even though this gift comes from a place of love and not of hatred. Buying a gift for Luc when Tito’s still angry at him for breaking his heart was hard, but he thinks that Luc’s going to love it nonetheless.

Luc rips the paper just like Tito did, and the smile on his face when he sees the box is so big that Tito thinks he might have picked the right gift after all.

“Is this what I think it is?” he asks. He’s still got that smile on his face that is to die for.

Tito shrugs and waits for Luc to open the box. His reaction is priceless, and Tito wishes he was filming this. Luc takes the shoes out of the box and he looks so happy. “I love them.”

“Yeah, I saw them and thought you’d like them,” Tito says. His arm is still wrapped around Luc’s middle and he just squeezes him a little tighter. “They were a limited edition and I thought you could add them to your collection. You can’t ever have too many shoes, right?”

Luc laughs a little. “That’s what I always say,” he says, to Tito but to his parents and sister too. “I really love them, thank you,” he adds, kissing Tito’s cheek.

It seems to please Luc’s parents.

Tito isn’t _too_ pleased. He can tell Luc wanted to kiss him and that he wasn’t sure if he could and now he feels like an asshole for not telling Luc that he could kiss him when he came over at the beginning of the month to talk about which lines they could and couldn’t cross.

He doesn’t let himself think about it too long and sits there while Luc and the rest of his family exchange the rest of their gifts.

 

They put Christmas music on afterwards to clean up the mess of wrapping paper that’s left on the floor. Luc’s parents are in the kitchen getting lunch ready for when Luc’s extended family arrives in a few hours. Luc warned him about the hoard of nieces and nephews that would come over in the afternoon. Luc’s sister left after getting all her gifts with the promise of being back on time for dinner with the rest of the family, which leaves Luc and Tito alone in the living room.

They fill two garbage bags with wrapping paper, tape and ribbons and they take both outside before coming back to sing Christmas songs off key. They’re having fun and it almost feels like they’re not pretending to be something they’re not which feels – good. It feels good to just be himself around Luc like he has been for the past few years. It reminds him of last year’s Christmas, too, because they had such a good time that they were already planning this year’s Christmas one year ahead.

The track changes and ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ comes on and Tito can’t help but sing along to all the lyrics. He remembers thinking about this exact moment in the summer—thinking about how they would probably spend time singing Christmas songs together, cuddled on the couch. This is a little different, but it’s so good that Tito isn’t going to complain about it.

They’re being more touchy than usual, but Tito doesn’t mind it one bit. Luc grabs his hand and pulls him closer and Tito just lets him. Luc wraps his arms around Tito’s waist and they’re so close that it would be so easy to close the distance between them.

It would be so easy for Tito to get a hand on the back of Luc’s neck and tug him down for a kiss. He doesn’t know who moves first, but one minute they’re dancing and singing along to Mariah Carey and the next, they’re kissing. It’s not awkward at all at first and it makes Tito smile through the kiss. He didn’t think he’d forget how good kissing Luc feels, but this is much better than what he remembered. Tito kisses him back with ease. They kiss for a while and Tito only pulls back when he hears the song change and it ruins the mood.

He looks up at Luc and kisses him again, just because it looks like he can.

“Sorry,” Luc says.

“It’s okay,” Tito says. “We—I’m surprised we lasted this long without doing that.”

Luc smiles. “I wanted to, before. I just—I wasn’t sure you were okay with me kissing you, after everything.”

“Yeah,” Tito says, “I’m okay with it. I mean, it’s just going to make it more believable now.”

Luc doesn’t say anything for a while, but he goes back to the living room to sit on the couch, while Tito heads for the living room to ask if Luc’s parents need any help. His hand comes up to his lips for a second and they’re still warm. He smiles to himself and enters the kitchen.

 

They kiss again before the rest of Luc’s family arrives. Tito’s getting dressed in something warmer than a t-shirt because Luc just said they might be playing street hockey, when Luc corners him outside of the bathroom. He’s got a hand on the wall and the other one is on Tito’s hip. Tito doesn’t do anything, at first, and just lets Luc kiss him.

Tito doesn’t hesitate this time before kissing him back and he gets lost into the kiss easily. Tito didn’t think he’d ever miss making out with someone, but he’s definitely missed making out with Luc in the last few months.

The sound of footsteps outside the room brings them back to reality. Their kisses so far never last long, but they’re enough to keep Tito on his toes for the next time it’s gonna happen.

“What was that one for?” Tito says, and he’s confused without trying to let it show too much because he knows that this is all for show, but no one’s in the room right now and Luc had no reason at all to kiss him, this time.

He didn’t the first time either, Tito thinks.

“You’re too much,” Luc says.

Tito laughs. “What? That doesn’t even make any sense. If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, you’re definitely the one who’s too much. Your arms barely fit into the sleeves of your shirt and it’s taking every bit of self-control I have in me to ask you not to take your shirt off.”

Luc doesn’t reply to that. He points to Tito’s glasses instead. Tito grins, because he always forgets how much Luc loves his glasses. He wears them because he can’t see much otherwise, but even after buying contact lenses, he still prefers wearing glasses because he knows how much Luc loved them. It seems like his glasses still have the same effect on Luc and Tito’s glad. He doesn’t know how long this truce he and Luc have going on is going to last, so he’s definitely going to make the most of it.

“Oh yeah, I forgot how much you loved my glasses,” Tito lies.

Tito hates how much he wants to kiss Luc again in that moment, but his sister walks into the room without knocking and says, “See you guys downstairs. Everyone’s starting to arrive!”

And as much as Tito wants to spend all afternoon in here kissing Luc, he knows they have better things to do on Christmas day that don’t involve making out.

 

They keep kissing after that and as much as Tito doesn’t want it to stop, he knows it can’t keep happening.

They’ve just won a game of street hockey against the most competitive kids Tito’s ever seen and Luc has that look on his face that Tito knows all too well at this point. Tito’s not against kissing him or anything, but he also knows that the more they kiss before they actually talk about what the kisses mean, the harder the conversation they’ve both been dreading is going to be.

Luc kisses him in front of his sister, who doesn’t seem surprised of her brother’s sudden need to be kissing his boyfriend in public. He’s got a hand on the back of Tito’s neck and the kiss is over before Tito really gets to kiss back, but his lips are tingling and they’re warm and as much as his head is telling him that he wants _more_ , his heart is telling him a different story.

“We shouldn’t do that anymore,” Tito says, when Luc pulls back.

It’s direct and maybe a little too abrupt but he knows that it had to be said. Luc seems disappointed and Tito can tell by the look on his face. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” Tito adds, when it doesn’t look like Luc is going to say anything. “We haven’t talked about what happened, y’know, back in September yet and I don’t want to get hurt again.”

“Okay,” Luc says, and he’s off with his sister before Tito can blink twice.

So far on this trip, Tito’s spent too much time thinking about the ‘what if’s of everything that happened. Every time he kisses Luc, there are a lot of things running through his head and it’s a lot. It’s like thinking about too many things at once when all he should be focusing on is the way Luc’s lips are moving against his own. Instead, he’s thinking about what it all means. He’s asking himself questions that he knows he should be asking Luc, but he can’t. Not now. He’s not ready to get his heart broken again.

He goes upstairs to the bathroom and when he realizes that it’s empty, he locks himself in. And, before he knows it, he’s calling Chabby and it rings once, twice, and then it’s too late to hang up.

“Hey,” Tito says, but it’s rushed because he wants to get to the point.

Chabby doesn’t sound too thrilled on the other side. “You know that it’s Christmas, right? The holidays are supposed to be a moment for _all_ of us to just, enjoy our time with our families. I shouldn’t have to deal with whatever you’re about to tell me.”

“Okay, right, you shouldn’t _have_ to deal with it, but please, this is important. It’ll only take a second,” Tito says, and he’s insistent but only because he doesn’t know how he’s going to get through this if Chabby doesn’t help him deal with things. Deal with Luc, too.

Chabby laughs on the other end. “Alright, I’ll bite. Make it quick, though.”

“The gist of it is that, like, me and Luc keep kissing and it doesn’t make any sense.”

“You kissed?” Chabby asks, and he sounds delighted. “That’s a good thing!”

Tito disagrees. “How is that good? We haven’t talked about, y’know, everything, and he kissed me. What does that mean? Why does he keep doing it?”

There’s a moment of silence on the other end and Tito tells himself not to panic. If anyone’s going to make sense out of everything, it has to be Chabby. Even if it’s Christmas day, he’ll find time to make things clearer for Tito. Otherwise, he’d probably have hung up the phone by now.

“First, you need to chill,” Chabby says. “You’re saying he kissed you first, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, talk to him,” Chabby says.

Tito laughs. “It’s not that easy.”

“No, believe me, it is,” Chabby says, sighing. “All you have to do is talk to him and deal with this with him. I don’t know how you two lasted so long together if you can’t even talk to each other. This is Luc we’re talking about. He has a reason for everything he does, so just talk to him.”

This is the first time Tito’s not entirely convinced with what Chabby says. He’s going to try talking to Luc, but with the way he walked out of the room earlier, he’s not sure talking about this with Luc is going to be possible. There’s that and also the fact that there’s a bunch of people on Luc’s mom’s side that he hasn’t met yet and they’re probably going to spend most of the night talking with them, so talking isn’t really an option. At least, not right now.

“Fine, I’ll try,” Tito says, after a while. “Oh, and Merry Christmas.”

That makes Chabby laugh, at least. “Merry Christmas,” he says, and hangs up a second later.

Tito walks out of the bathroom and goes back downstairs with everyone.

 

The rest of the day is terrible. It’s like breaking up all over again. Except this time, Tito doesn’t know who’s more to blame—him or Luc.

 

They have dinner with Luc’s extended family and they still pretend to be in love around them, but it’s harder than it was before. Luc can barely look at him and when he gets the chance, he looks away and talks to his sister. Things are tense and if Tito can feel it, someone else in the room is probably feeling it too. Tito’s thinking about how if he hadn’t said anything, maybe things would’ve been fine for a few more hours and they could’ve talked before going to bed. It’s too late now to change anything, but he still wishes he could.

Once dinner is over, most of the kids meet up in the basement to play Chel and Luc follows them, and Tito decides to give him a little space by helping out in the kitchen with the dishes. It was that or going back upstairs and hiding in the bathroom until it was okay to come out and he thinks that the first idea is a much better one and it helps more people in the end.

“Do you need help with anything?” he says, standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

Luc’s mom turns around and offers Tito a nice smile. “It’s very nice of you to ask, but I think we’re going to be okay here. You can go in the basement with everyone if you want, or there’s probably a Christmas movie on the TV in the living room.”

“Are you sure?” Tito asks, “because I don’t mind helping you with the dishes at all.”

“You’re our guest, Anthony,” she says. “I’m sure there’s something for you to do downstairs. This is your day off as much as it is my son’s, so please don’t feel like you have to do anything to help.”

He goes downstairs after all, although rather reluctantly.

What he finds downstairs is about 8 kids sitting on the couch, Luc sitting on the floor, and they’ve got four controllers to play Chel. Luc has one in his hands and he looks like he’s losing by a lot against his nieces and nephews, but he seems like he’s having fun for the first time ever since that conversation they had. He picked the Blue Jackets, which doesn’t surprise Tito one bit, but what surprises him is the fact that his nephews picked the Islanders.

He’s staring at the TV, standing behind everyone else so that he doesn’t distract anyone when one of Luc’s nieces turns around and tugs on the sleeve of his sweater.

“Do you want to play on my team after, Anthony?” she says, and she’s giving him a big smile that it’s almost impossible for Tito to say no.

He smiles back at her. “Yeah, of course. Who’re we playing?”

“Whoever wins the next game,” she says, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I wanted to play with you because I want to win against PL.”

“Sounds good to me,” Tito says, still smiling.

Surprisingly, things are okay for a while.  

Luc and his nephew aren’t very good and Tito and one of Luc’s nieces win the game easily 10-2. Tito scores a few goals with his own player, which makes everyone around the room laugh and Tito almost feels like he’s at home playing with his family in that very moment.

They go back upstairs for dessert later on, and most of the kids look tired, so it looks like they’re not going to stay over very long. Tito yawns, feeling a little tired too, and he helps carry a few of them who’ve fallen asleep upstairs to their parents. Luc is right behind him and once they’ve placed the sleeping kids on the couch, they go back to the kitchen table together. They don’t hold hands, but Luc’s hand is on the small of his back again and Tito feels better—feels like he can breathe again.

Having Luc not touch him for so long was weird and he’d like not to do that again. He knows that in a few days once this is all over, they’re going to have to tell Luc’s parents that they broke up, but for now, he’d rather spend all of his time reminiscing all the time he spent together with Luc instead of thinking about how they need to break up, again. He doesn’t think he can get through that.

Everyone’s walking around with a piece of cake in a paper plate and Luc and Tito aren’t exactly talking, but they’re standing close to each other when someone behind them clears their throat, making Tito turn around to see what’s going on.

He looks confused to see Luc’s mom and her sister standing next to each other, looking at the ceiling, but it doesn’t take long for him to figure out that even though there wasn’t a mistletoe hanging out from the ceiling before, there happens to be one now. They’re both caught off guard, and they look at each other before looking back at Luc’s mom.

“You have to do it, it’s tradition,” she says.

Tito thought that only Luc’s mom was looking but when he turns back around, it looks like they’ve accumulated quite the audience. It would be stupid not to do it, because everyone’s watching, and they’d been kissing behind closed doors before Tito put a stop to it. This is no different—they just have to pretend like no one’s watching them.

Luc’s definitely flushing and Tito can feel it when he puts a hand on his neck. He’s looking into Luc’s eyes, trying to figure out whether or not they’re really doing this or if they should just kiss each other on the cheek and call it a day. Luc leans down and whispers in Tito’s ear.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, and Tito’s almost surprised at the question. “I know you said you wanted us to stop earlier. It’s okay if you don’t want—”

Tito doesn’t let him finish and uses the hand he has on Luc’s neck to move his head in the right position for a kiss. It doesn’t last long; most kisses under the mistletoe never do, but it seems to last long enough for everyone that’s looking at them to be satisfied. The reactions are mixed—while a lot of the kids seem to be disgusted by the intense display of affection, most of the adults seem to find them both adorable.

“That was so sweet,” Luc’s aunt says. “Maybe try and look up instead of looking at each other next time, boys.”

She doesn’t have to say much more than that for Tito to know that it was her that put the mistletoe up there, and that Luc’s mom had no problem helping her or enabling her.

They go in the living room and Luc’s cheeks are still flushed. They’re sitting on the couch together, holding hands awkwardly and all Tito wants to do is lay down like he did that first night and have Luc play in his hair for a while. He doesn’t, though, because that’s enough PDA for today. Luc seems to agree, judging by the look on his face. He’s smiling—that easy kind of smile that Tito fell in love with and it doesn’t take much more than that for Tito to smile, too.

When they go to bed that night, Luc goes back to giving Tito the cold shoulder.

 

Things go back to normal the next morning, and the weird thing is, Tito wishes they didn’t. He wants things to be painful and awkward, just like they were the first time around when they broke up. This isn’t a break up, technically—they don’t have to tell Luc’s parents about the break up for another week or so—but it feels like one in many ways.

Tito’s done helping Luc’s dad with the dishes when Luc and his mom walk into the kitchen. Tito’s got a damp dish cloth on his shoulder and he turns towards Luc with a smile. It’s quick—not forced, and almost genuine and Luc smiles back at him, except it’s one of those smiles that Tito is very familiar with. It’s one of those smiles that made Tito fall for Luc in the first place.

Luc’s mom looks at Tito, and then back at Luc, and then says, “I’m glad you boys have each other. You really make my boy happy, Anthony, I’m glad he has you.”

Tito smiles at her, because he’s frozen, and he can’t move. He’s glad Luc’s mom is buying their whole charade, or whatever, but pretending to be in love with his ex-boyfriend is starting to get super overwhelming. Tito was fine with doing this for Luc in the first place, but he was wrong thinking things wouldn’t become _too much_ for him to handle.

Tito puts the dish cloth on the counter and he’s lucky that Luc’s nieces come barging into the kitchen asking for snacks, because that means he can leave the room discreetly and have some time alone with his thoughts. He grabs his coat from the hanger, puts his shoes on and goes outside for a while. He’s not expecting Luc to follow him outside or anything, but he sits on the front stairs and watches the younger kids playing street hockey. It’s quiet, apart from the yells and laughs, but it’s calming enough that Tito doesn’t feel like he can’t breathe anymore.

He knew this was a bad idea outright, but he couldn’t say no, and now he’s suffering the consequences. Or, like, something like that. The feeling in his chest is still there, tight, and he doesn’t see it going away for a while. Falling in love with Luc is one of the easiest things he’s done in his life, and falling out of love with him, well—that’s not really possible for him right now, is it? Luc is everywhere and it’s Tito’s fault.

The front door opens behind him and Tito doesn’t have to turn around to know that it’s Luc. He doesn’t have the chance to tell Luc that he wants a second alone before Luc sits next to him.

“I know that was a lot, back there,” Luc says, putting a hand on Tito’s shoulder. “I can tell her to tone it down if you want. She just—”

“She wants the best for you, I get that,” Tito says, smiling at Luc so he knows that he’s telling the truth. “I’m sorry for running out of there.”

“You don’t have to apologize, I’m the one who dragged you into this. I should’ve told them about us before it was too late. I’m the one who’s sorry,” Luc says, and he sounds sincere enough that Tito believes him.

Hearing that Luc is sorry doesn’t fix everything, but it definitely helps.

“You know, I didn’t tell my parents either,” Tito says. He doesn’t know why he says it—to even the playing field, maybe, he’s not sure—but it feels good to have that out in the open. “It just never came up, I guess.”

And it’s true—Tito talks to his parents a lot and he kept talking about Luc even after the break up. It helped that he was keeping a close eye with the Blue Jackets’ schedule and with the scores and highlights, but it almost fooled him too, sometimes. Tito would be talking to his parents and he’d get flashbacks of last year, when he would talk to Luc all the time after games, to really have his version of things instead of relying on recap videos and articles about the game.

They would text back and forth almost every day, too. Tito used to know what Luc was up to most of the time. This time around, it’s different. He has to rely to Instagram to know what Luc’s up to. It’s definitely different and he’s certainly not used to it but—

“Yeah,” Luc says, breaking the silence. “Telling them also made it real, y’know?”

That’s also one of the reasons why Tito didn’t tell his parents. He still wanted to believe that their break up was temporary, so telling his parents made it official that they wouldn’t get back together.

He’s still angry about everything but his anger towards Luc is starting to dissipate. It’s still mostly Luc’s fault that they’re not enjoying the holidays as much as they would’ve, were they still together, but this is the next best thing. Tito’s parents are in Belfast to spend Christmas with his brother, so he would’ve probably spent the holidays alone in his apartment in Brooklyn, watching too much Netflix and eating too much takeout. He’s sure one of his teammates would’ve given him a pity invite to their Christmas dinner, but being here with Luc is better.

Surprisingly.

“So,” Luc says, talking again. Tito feels like he hasn’t been doing much of the talking. “I’m an idiot.”

Tito laughs, because he wasn’t expecting that at all.

“I’m not expecting you to forgive me, because I know I hurt you,” Luc says, “but I’m an idiot for breaking up with you in the first place. We had a good thing going, you and me, and then this summer was one of the best of my life because I got to spend most of it with you. And the first week when I got to training camp was really hard, because I’d always turn around expecting you to be there and you weren’t.”

Luc stops talking and Tito grabs his hand. It seems to help, because Luc continues.

“I knew I could text you or call you, if anything, but it wasn’t the same. We spent, what, two weeks apart this summer?” Luc says, looking away from Tito. He laughs a little, but it’s a sad laugh, small and a little dejected. “It’s stupid now that I say it out loud, but like, it hurt _so_ much to be away from you that I thought that if we broke up, it would help me focus on hockey and nothing else.”

“No, it’s—I get it,” Tito says, tightening his grip on Luc’s hand. He twines their fingers together. “I just wish you had talked to me about it before, y’know? We’ve been through so much, we could’ve gotten through that, too. Together.”

Luc smiles. “Yeah, I know that now.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Tito says, because Luc at least deserves that. “I’m—I know you were trying to get things back to normal when you came over at the beginning of the month and I didn’t wanna hear any of it.”

“I don’t blame you,” Luc says.

They sit there in silence for a while.

“So, what now?”

Luc laughs. “I’m willing to give us a second chance if you are.”

“You really think I’m gonna say no? Even after all of this?” Tito asks.

Luc shrugs. “Can’t read your mind, babe,” he says.

 _Babe_. Tito realizes in that moment that he missed how he and Luc used to be affectionate with each other before everything and Tito really wants to kiss him.

“So, are you gonna kiss me, or what?”

Luc doesn’t have to be told twice. He pulls Tito closer to him and he kisses him, hard. It’s different than every kiss they’ve shared so far in this trip, not because this one is actually real but because it actually means something. They’ve gone through all of this only to get to the best part, which is the part where Tito leaves with a boyfriend. Tito smiles into the kiss and it’s not perfect, because Luc smiles too.

Tito pulls back to kiss the underside of Luc’s jaw, only before he realizes that they’re still sitting on a balcony and that there are people walking on the street.

“We should take this inside,” Tito says, with one last kiss.

Luc doesn’t seem to disagree. They stand up and they’re almost inside when Luc says, “Yeah. There’s one thing that doesn’t make sense to me, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Why did you even agree to this in the first place? I’ll admit I was surprised that you said yes so quickly. Especially with the way I had treated you,” Luc says.

Tito didn’t know why he agreed to this, at first. Now, though, with a clearer mind he does.

“I could lie and say that I only did it because I knew you’d do the same for me,” Tito says, bringing one of his hands up to cup Luc’s face. “But the real reason I said yes is because I thought that maybe this was our only chance of getting back together and I wasn’t going to miss that. I didn’t know how it would end—I’ll be honest, I thought this would be terrible, but it wasn’t that bad. I’m definitely glad I agreed that night.”

Luc stands there, staring at Tito for a moment. He leans in, kisses Tito again and then pulls back with a smile. “You’re pretty smart, you know that?”

Tito smiles. “So you’ve said.” He grins, pulling on the door handle so they can get inside. It’s starting to get a little cold and as much as he wants to be sentimental about this whole thing, he’d rather do it in the warmth of Luc’s home. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Luc says. “Chabs said he didn’t think you’d agree, but I’m really glad you did.”

“I don’t think we would’ve gotten here if it wasn’t for Chabs,” Tito says, because he’s had to be the most constant thing from start to finish. “We owe him big.”

“We’ll thank him later, can we just—” Luc says, pointing to the bedroom upstairs.

Tito grabs his hand and pulls him upstairs. He ignores the look they get from Luc’s sister when they get on the second floor, because what happens next is worth it.  

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you got this far, i would love to hear which part you liked! let me know in the comments and kudos are appreciated, too!


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